Festival Films & Documentaries

Festival Films

Documentaries

This is a story about the families of those who for a time were our witnesses, our eyes and our voice, but when threatened, they had to leave Mexico and have been forced to live in exile in search of political asylum. This is not about how the pen is mightier than the sword but about invisible reporters who represent the most fragile link in the news chain and are now in a migratory limbo.

Seen through the eyes of small, midsize and large Mexican maize producers, SUNÚ knits together different stories from a threatened rural world. This film documents how people realize their determination to stay free, to work the land and cultivate their seeds, to be true to their cultures and forms of spirituality, all in a modern world where corn is being threatened at the center of its origin: Mexico.

Disturbing the Peace follows a group of former enemy combatants – Israeli soldiers from the most elite units, and Palestinian fighters, many of whom served years in prison – who have come together to challenge the status quo and and say “enough”. The film traces their transformational journeys from soldiers committed to armed battle to non-violent peace activists. It is a story of the human potential unleashed when we stop participating in a story that no longer serves us, and with the power of our convictions take action to create a new possibility.

Two brothers deal with the loss of their father, and while their lives intertwine and spiral out of control they both begin to fall in love for the same woman. Dealing with issues of loss, pain, family, and love the film delves into the real lives of individuals who must pull themselves out of their own suffering.

Raising 11 children while wrestling with gender bias, union defeat and victory, and nearly dying after a San Francisco Police beating, Dolores Huerta bucks 1950s gender conventions to co-found the country’s first farmworkers union.

The Maguey is a symbol of Mexico. From the beginning times to been of fundamental importance to the development of Mesoamerican culture. The invaders call the magey the “tree of wonders”. Has not existed in our forte nation plastic artist that has not succumbed to the temptation of a magey plasma. With its pencas and quiote houses are built, they are woven clothes are prepared food; in its bowels the lives the ocuili gusanito of chincuil, millennial bite; of his heart the elixir mexican mana par excellence: the mead with which the creators decided fill of pleasure to the man by calling him octli pulque

The story of how one family copes with a tragedy across the generations; it is a meditation on memory, family ties and secrets as well as the difficulty by which the new generations adapt to trying times.

A portrait of the life of a woman who had suffered from the disappearance of his son in 1975, in the city of Monterrey. From then on, she became a tireless fighter, and that fight for the search of his missing son propelled her to a project dedicated to the defense of human rights in Mexico.

In 1964, the largest stone carved of America was transferred by means of an impressive maneuver of engineering from the town of San Miguel Coatlinchan, in the municipality of Texcoco, up to the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. The removal of the monolith, which represents a prehispanic water deity, detonated a rebellion among the villagers and the consequent intervention of the army.

A Pope from Latin America and a Jesuit Pope sounded like science fiction just five years ago, but now is a reality. Pope Francis has been a new breath of fresh air for the Catholic Religion, and this documentary explains to us why he is the way he is, and not a new way of being a Pope, but a whole life dedicated to the same principles. We get to meet Pope Francis through his family, his friends, and people that worked with him, from the time he was an Argentinian kids playing soccer in the streets, all the way to the head of the Jesuit order in the South of Latin America.

The 70th anniversary of the birth of El Santo and the wrestling debut of his son Mark was the starting point from which The Son of Santo will take us into his story. His family history goes beyond the ring through personal memories and records, and brings us closer to his childhood with a father who had a double identity, to the discovery of the hero at home, and the reasons for wanting to continue this legacy.

The film is by Jennifer Conrad, a California exotic-animal veterinarian who explains that she first became concerned about declawing, due to all the pain and suffering it causes felines, pain and suffering that she witnessed through her work with tigers and other big cats that had ended up in sanctuaries. From there she began a push to ban declawing of domestic cats, a campaign that became national news in 2003 when West Hollywood, Calif., outlawed the procedure, and then five more Cities in California started debating to do the same.